Policies

Privacy Policy

This informative soapmaking website (http://www.modernsoapmaking.com) and all of its content are owned by Modern Soapmaking, LLC, which is owned by Kendra Cote. (You know me as Kenna. Please keep calling me that.)

Below, you will find our privacy policy which describes how we collect, use, process and distribute your information. We do not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this policy. The use of information collected through our website shall be limited to the purposes of this policy.

As much as it sucks to read policies, please read this privacy policy carefully. We may change this privacy policy at any time. But we will let you know via email and/or a prominent notice on our website if changes are made!

By using our website, you consent to this policy.

What personal information do we collect from you?

Comments & Forum Posts

If you leave comments on our website or participate in our forums, we collect the data shown in the form as well as your IP address and browser user agent string to help with spam detection. No one likes spam, not even us.

Media

If you upload images to the website on our Community forum, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website. No one wants stalkers.

Contact forms

If you submit contact forms on our website, we collect the data shown in the contact form as well as your IP address and browser user agent string to help with spam detection. Remember, spam is yucky.

After you submit a contact form, the information is emailed to us at support@modernsoapmaking.com so we can read and respond to your message. That’s why you want to send it, right? The submitted information is kept securely in our database and in our email service for two years. After that, it’s deleted – so don’t expect us to remember what you said three years ago!

Shopping

When you browse our store related pages, we store information about:

Products you’ve viewed. We use this information to show you products you’ve recently viewed, similar products, and make suggestions. It makes shopping more fun!

Your location, IP address and browser type. We use this information to estimate taxes and shipping. Because not knowing about sales tax is a bummer.

Shipping address. We use this information estimate shipping before you place an order and send you the order. No one likes surprise shipping costs.

Your shopping cart contents. We store a copy of your cart in our database for 60 days to improve your shopping experience and remind you of your cart’s contents. I like to window shop online, too.

If you purchase from us, we’ll ask you to provide information including your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number, credit card/payment details and account information like username and password. We use this information to:

Send you information about your account and order (Good record-keeping is vital for your business!)

Respond to your requests, including refunds and complaints (We try to turn unhappy peeps into rockstars.)

Set up your account for our store (Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to access your goodies.)

Comply with any legal obligations we have, such as calculating taxes (Ugh, no one likes taxes.)

Improve our store offerings (How else do you think we get such fab ideas?)

Send you marketing messages if you choose to receive them (You can totally opt-out if you want.)

If you create an account, we will store your name, address, email and phone number, which will be used to populate the checkout for future orders. You can edit or change this information anytime you want in your account dashboard.

We generally store information about you for as long as we need the information for the purposes for which we collect and use it, and we are not legally required to continue to keep it. For example, we will store order information for four years for tax and accounting purposes. This includes your name, email address, and billing and shipping addresses. We’ll delete it sooner if you want us to, just ask.

We will also store product reviews if you choose to leave them. We really love when people leave reviews, it helps others shop for their needs. So, thank you, if you choose to chime in!

Embedded content from other websites

Sometimes, when I write an article, I might include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if you visited the website it came from.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

If you opt-in to receive our emails, we may use your personal information to provide you with product updates or marketing communications that we believe may be of interest to you. We try to stick to a once-a-week email schedule, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

If you do not want to receive emails from us after subscribing, you may opt-out by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. And it won’t hurt my feelings, promise. xo

We store your communication preferences when you sign up. It helps us make sure we email you exactly how you like to be emailed. This data is retained until you request the removal of your data.

We keep a log of some of the communication that we have with you. We keep these logs to improve our marketing and communication with you and other customers. For example, if we send an email everyone hates, we know not to do that again. These logs are retained until you request removal of your data.

Analytics

Like most websites around, we collect non-identifying information, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. We collect this information to better understand how you use our website, so we can keep improving it.

We may collect statistics about your behavior on our website. For instance, we monitor the most popular pages on the website to help us with content creation or use spam screened by the Akismet service to help identify spam. Like the other analytical information, it helps prevent us from sucking at this whole owning a website thing.

Too long, didn’t read?

We may use the information we collect from you when you register, make a purchase, sign up for our newsletter, respond to a survey or marketing communication, surf the website, or use certain other site features in the following ways:

To personalize your experience and allow us to deliver the type of content and product offerings in which you are most interested

To improve our website in order to better serve you

To allow us to better service you in responding to your customer service requests

To administer a contest, promotion, survey or other site feature

To quickly process your transactions

To send periodic emails regarding your order or other products and services

How long do we store data?

If you leave a comment, the comment and its data are retained indefinitely unless requested to be removed. It makes the site look really weird when we delete old comments, folks replying to ghosts and nothing and all.

If you have an account, you can see, edit, or delete your personal information at any time (except you cannot change your username) on your account dashboard.

If you have an account and do not log in to this site, we remove your account and all relevant information after two years of inactivity. We figure, after two years, you’ve probably moved on, and deleting your data makes room for new people. (Plus, we don’t really need it anymore.)

If you begin to place an order and choose to abandon the checkout process, cancel the order, or fail to complete the order, your initiated order will be deleted after thirty days. I love you, but we don’t need to keep that information.

If you place an order and fully complete it, we delete the order information after four years. We keep it for so long to make sure you can access your digital products, but also, so we can not have the tax man down our throats. Make sure to download your ordered goodies though, as we can’t retrieve deleted orders or associated digital products. They go bye-bye for real.

If you sign up for marketing emails and do not want to receive them any longer, you may opt-out by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. We do not delete the information collected from email subscribers unless requested. Otherwise, we’d have a lot of angry emails from people asking why they aren’t receiving that thing they signed up for.

What rights you have over your data

You can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes. Just drop us a line to put in a request.

Where we store your data

For the most part, we keep your data right where you leave it. However, we do send comments through an automated spam detection service called Akismet. Your user information, such as account data and order information, is stored in our web host’s secure database. And if you are an email subscriber, your information is stored in our email service’s secure database. Please see the Third Party Disclosure for more information.

How do we protect your info?

Our website is scanned on a regular basis for security holes and known vulnerabilities in order to make your visit to our site as safe as possible. Unlike a lot of other folks, I stay up-to-date on WordPress security and geek out about it quite a bit.

Your personal information is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of people who have special access rights to such systems, and are required to keep the information confidential. (That’s me and our Community Coordinators, who help you out when you ask for it!) When you register for an account on our website, you are responsible for maintaining your account’s security by using a strong password. (So don’t go using “password123” – our website will make you change it.)

We implement a variety of security measures when a user places an order enters, submits, or accesses their information to maintain the safety of your personal information. All transactions are protected by SSL encryption technology, processed through a gateway provider, and are not stored or processed on our servers. I don’t want your sensitive data on my shoulders. We trust Paypal and Stripe to do the dirty work. See our Third Party Disclosure for more information.

If you are not in the United States, you should know that your personal information will be processed in the United States. That’s where we live and work, sorry.

In the ridiculously low-chance but unfortunate event of a data breach, we will contact you and the relevant authorities within 72 hours of discovery.

Do we use cookies?

Yes, we do.

If you don’t know what they are, cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser that enables the site’s or service provider’s systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information.

They are not food and do not come in delicious flavors like chocolate chip or peanut butter. (My stomach did not just grumble.)

We use the following types of cookies:

Necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the essential operation of our websites such as to authenticate users and prevent fraudulent use.

Analytical cookies. They allow us to recognize and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our websites when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our websites work, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

Functionality cookies. These are used to recognize you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalize our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences.

Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our websites, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We use this information to make our website more relevant to your interests.

You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being set or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You can do this through your browser’s settings or preferences. Every browser is a little different, so look at your browser’s Help files to learn the correct way to modify your cookies. Here are some popular browsers:

If you disable cookies off, some features will be disabled. Actually, a lot of features will be disabled. It will break a lot of our website. But you can still read the articles.

You may choose to delete cookies on your computer at any time. Use your browser preferences to do so. Unfortunately, deleting cookies does not make real food cookies appear.

Third Party Disclosure

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information with the exception of the following services:

We use Google Analytics for analytical information. Some of your anonymized non-identifying data will be passed to Google Analytics to help us improve the website. Please see the Google Privacy Policy for more details.

We accept payments through PayPal and Stripe. When processing payments, some of your data will be passed to PayPal or Stripe, including information required to process or support the payment, such as the purchase total and billing information. Please see the PayPal Privacy Policy and Stripe Privacy Policy for more details.

We use Leadpages and Drip for email marketing. Your data may be transferred to Drip for processing in accordance with their Privacy Policy. You can opt-out at any time by clicking the link in an email from us.

We use Gravatar to display user avatars when displaying comments. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. Please see the Gravatar Privacy Policy for more details.

We don’t let anyone talk us into giving out your information. Not even when the Soap Gremlins threaten our soap pot. Oh, so many bad batches of soap are worth your trust. See, we really love you.

Third party links

Occasionally, we may include or offer third party information, products, or services on our website. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. If you see a broken link or a questionable link, let us know so we can fix it.

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Please see Amazon’s Privacy Policy for more details.

Contact Us

We are the data controllers since we collect and use the data we just talked about. (That really kind of sounds way more badass than it is.) We use trusted third parties as our data processors for technical and organizational purposes, including for payments and email marketing. We like folks that are also GDPR compliant, but we can’t guarantee it.

Children Online Privacy Protection Act

We do not market to or serve children under the age of 18 years old. Our content and information is directed to adults because soapmaking can be dangerous. Also, I have a potty mouth.

Contacting Us

If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy or you wish to make a request for your personal data, you may contact us.

Last Updated: May 25th, 2018

Comment Policy

We do our absolute best to encourage open and civil conversation by allowing comments on Modern Soapmaking content.

It is common that we respond to comments within 14 days of the original posting date of the full article. Comments posted on older content are generally approved, but may not be answered by anyone from the Modern Soapmaking team. We allow these comments to continue to be posted in case anyone from the community would like to engage in discussion.

By leaving a comment, you understand that:

You may comment without registering. You do not have to have a Modern Soapmaking account to leave a comment, however, comments are sometimes moderated if an email address is unrecognized by the system.

You may post anonymously. We highly encourage users not to post anonymously but understand that sometimes, you may feel uncomfortable leaving your name. This may change in the future if it is abused.

We use spam prevention filters on comments. Our website automatically filters spam comments and has blocked over 200,000 spam comments since it’s creation. Unfortunately, some valid and legitimate comments get filtered as spam. While we do our best to retrieve these comments, it is not guaranteed that we will.

You may post follow-up questions. If you have a question, chances are you are not alone. We would much rather receive your comments on the blog than via email.

You may disagree with Modern Soapmaking or others. We’re all game for opinions and with that comes the possibility of disagreements. However, we will not tolerate disrespectful discussion. Keep the comments clean, happy, and positive.

We reserve the right to delete your comments. We will delete any comment that is rude, off-topic, spam, defamatory, abusive, threatening, pornographic, misleading or otherwise causing an issue for the health and vibrancy of the Modern Soapmaking community. Any user that creates a negative environment may be banned from further using Modern Soapmaking’s website.

You retain ownership of your comments. We disclaim any and all liability that may result from your comments left on Modern Soapmaking. By commenting here, you agree that you retain all ownership rights in what you post here and that you will relieve us from any and all liability that may result from those comments.

You grant us a license to post your comments. This license is worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, and royalty-free. You grant me the right to store, use, transmit, display, publish, reproduce, and distribute your comments in any format, including but not limited to a blog post, in a book, a video, or presentation.

Sales Tax Policy

Modern Soapmaking collects sales tax in states where we have a physical presence (or nexus), such as Missouri, and when we are required to. We do not collect sales tax in states NOT listed because we’re not required to at this time.

Even if we do not collect sales tax from you, you may owe sales tax on your purchase. Your state most likely requires purchasers to report and pay tax on all purchases that are not taxed at the time of sale. The tax may be reported and paid on your individual income tax return or by filing a consumer use tax return. For more information, please visit your state’s department of revenue website.

Legal & Copyright Disclaimer

Modern Soapmaking and its content (images, text, videos, etc.) are protected under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws, and all rights are reserved, including resale rights. You are not allowed to reuse, distribute, modify, give or sell any material from Modern Soapmaking to anyone else, including but not limited to photographs, articles, ebooks, videos, downloads, etc.

Please note that all of the information presented on Modern Soapmaking is based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence. Although we have made every attempt to achieve complete accuracy, we assume no responsibility for errors or omissions.

Also, you should use this information as you see fit, and at your own risk. Your particular formula or method may not be exactly suited to the information included within, and you should adjust your use of the information and recommendations accordingly.

Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference.

Lastly, use your head. Nothing on Modern Soapmaking is intended to replace common sense, legal, medical or other professional advice, and is meant to inform the reader of our experiences so that they may garner whatever information is pertinent to them.

Modern Soapmaking is not responsible for injury or liability to any reader or commenter resulting from the content posted on the site, or from comments posted by readers, that may be viewed as offensive, misleading, inaccurate, illegal, or otherwise unsuitable.

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